He left school and tried to find something to do in order to support his mother, who was an invalid; but nobody needed his services. “There’s work enough to be done,” he often said to his mother, when he came home from his long tramps, weary and dusty; “but they won’t give me a chance. They are all suspicious of me. But never mind; you shan’t suffer. I have long been thinking of something; and, since no one will hire me, I shall go into business for myself.” And he did, just as soon as he could make the necessary arrangements. The people who would not let him saw their wood, because they were afraid he would steal something, did not refuse to purchase the delicious trout and yellow perch that he peddled from door to door, and neither did the luscious berries he brought in from distant fields and pastures ever remain long on his hands. He made money; but he often became disheartened, and angry, too, when he drew a contrast between his circumstances and those of the boys about him, and then all that was needed was a smile or a word of praise from his mother to bring all his courage and determination back to him again. But now she was gone—the only friend he ever had. She had been dead just a week, and George was lonely, indeed. He wanted to get out into the woods by himself, and stay there, and he was already making preparations to take a final leave of the house which he could no longer call his home, when he saw his Uncle Ruben’s old clay-bank pacer coming down the road, and Uncle Ruben himself in the saddle. George was not at all pleased to see him, for he knew pretty nearly what the man would have to say to him. “’Taint no great shakes of a place,” said Uncle Ruben, after running his eye over the house and its surroundings. “But mebbe I can sell it for enough to save myself. Then you won’t go home with me an’ work for your board and clothes?” “No, I won’t,” replied George promptly. He did not thank his relative for his offer, for he knew the object he had in making it. George was very strong for a boy of his age, and fully capable of doing a man’s work in the field; and he knew that his services there would be worth much more than his board and clothes. So did Uncle Ruben; but the latter thought it would be a good thing if he could induce his nephew to agree to his proposition, for it would be a saving to him of twenty or thirty dollars a month. “If you will stay with me till you are twenty-one years old, I will give you a yoke of oxen an’ a good suit of clothes to begin life with,” added Uncle Ruben. “That’s customary, you know.” “I know it is,” answered George. “But if I live to see the age of twenty-one, I shall have more than a yoke of worthless old oxen and a suit of shoddy clothes, _I_ tell you!” Uncle Ruben winced a little at this.